2020 Review

Now, I could rush to judgment and write 2020 off like so many others. But as a guy with internet access and time on my hands, it is my solemn duty to give this year an impartial review on its own merits.

Like most years, 2020 started off with a bang. I recall a lot of fireworks as well as a giant orb dropping from the sky somewhere in New York. There was a lot of hype for the year early on, if you recall, but we got off to a rocky start, what with the wildfires in Australia, that plane that Iran blew up, and the president of the US being impeached for only the third time in history which was, spoiler alert, not very good television. The case itself was very boring to watch. If you’re going to include a legal drama, 2020, you should really get Aaron Sorkin on the dialogue, because otherwise it feels like you’re wasting our time. And that’s without even getting into the continued rash of police brutality.

Obviously, everyone’s talking about the COVID-19 Pandemic as one of the biggest plot threads of this year, and yeah, that one was a doozy. Over 300,000 Americans died, businesses and social life slowed to a crawl. The immediate effects have been devastating, and the after effects will continue to be devastating. In the interest of complete fairness, I have to acknowledge that I have been able to sleep in more as a result, but those things don’t quite balance each other out. I’m going to go with the crowd and give COVID-19 two thumbs down. But as for the US government’s response to the crisis… Five thumbs down (I got some help on that one.)

How about culture in 2020?

The Queen’s Gambit was pretty solid. And we all got really invested in exotic animal ownership for about a month there… Um… Have I talked about The Mandalorian Season Two? That was pretty sick.

Let’s call it a few bright spots in an otherwise largely empty year.

Honestly, it’s hard to quantify a year like 2020. We’ve seen some absolute selflessness, kindness, and pulling together in the wake of tragedy after tragedy, as well as ignorance and self-destructive tendencies without any reasonable excuse. If we remember this year for anything besides masks and staying home, it will be for cementing utterly the fact our strongest systems are made up of people: vulnerable, fallible, often short-sighted, some times inspiring people. In a lot of ways, our systems failed this year, and if 2021 is going to be any better, we need to own it and learn how to make it better.

Which is why I’m giving 2020 1.5 COVID-19 Vaccines out of 5. More are on the way, I promise, I just can’t tell you when.